'The priority is the rescue of people who are still isolated,' official says

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People use boards to cross over the water running along where the main street of Campo Grande neighbourhood used to be, after the devastation caused by the recent landslides of mud and rocks, in Teresopolis, some 100 km from Rio de Janiero, on Sunday. The Brazilian military took advantage of a break in the weather Sunday to send helicopters to remote areas near Rio hit by landslides and flooding that killed at least 610 people.

TERESOPOLIS, Brazil — A break in near-constant rain Sunday allowed Brazilian rescue helicopters to deliver desperately needed food and water to some of the neighborhoods buried under tons of earth in mudslides that killed more than 600 people.

Rain clouds lifted, allowing about a dozen helicopters to buzz around the craggy peaks of the emerald-green mountains in this area about 40 miles (65 kilometers) north of Rio de Janeiro.

"The priority is the rescue of people who are still isolated. We have to take advantage of this break in the weather to help people in these remote, collapsed areas," said Alexandre Aragon, head of the Brazilian National Security Force, which is aiding in the recovery.

The helicopters were not immediately being used to evacuate people from areas that are still at risk of more mudslides should rains return. Instead, they were concentrating on getting supplies to as many isolated areas as possible to keep people there alive.

The disaster hit in the early morning hours Wednesday, when days of heavy rains unleashed tons of earth, rock and raging torrents of water down steep mountainsides and directly into towns over an area of about 900 square miles (2,330 square kilometers). The known death toll stood at 626 people Sunday. Officials fear it will rise sharply as the remote areas are reached and more bodies found.

Anderson Correia de Oliveira, the local police commander, said there would be no miracle rescues of people buried under the mudslides after four days.

"There are no hopes of finding anybody alive," he said. "It's not like an earthquake — people trapped under things have been drowned. There are no air pockets."

Desperate survivors have complained of receiving no help and Brazil's government at all levels has come under criticism for the lack of speed in helping the victims.

But Oliveira and other officials said that reaching the most remote and desperate areas was impossible by helicopter until Sunday. The area hit by the slides is full of steep mountains with jagged peaks, making navigation challenging even in good weather, he said. With clouds that hovered well below the mountaintops for days, helicopters could not be used.

That has meant people have simply had to save themselves, mostly by hiking miles (kilometers) from their neighborhoods down to the center of Teresopolis to fetch supplies.

For days, slow streams of wet, muddy men and women, some in their bare feet, have tied supermarket bags together and slung them over their shoulders to carry basic provisions to those too frail to make the treacherous hike down to the city.

Many residents seemed resigned to getting little real help — and to staying in the dangerous neighborhoods that are under constant threat of future slides.

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In the hard-hit Cascata do Imbui neighborhood high above downtown Teresopolis, Maria de Jesus Correia, 50, said she watched the water and mud that killed many of her neighbors wash right by her house, and she heard their screams. But she continues to live in the small home carved into the hillside, caring for her three grandchildren.

She lives there for free — her husband is the caretaker for the ranch farther up the hill, and she cleans the landlord's home. They can't afford to pay rent elsewhere, and she doesn't like the prospect of sleeping on foam mattresses on the floor in a shelter with her grandchildren.

"What was supposed to happen has already happened," she said. "I am not leaving. Am I going to take my grandchildren to a shelter? It's a horror down there."

President Dilma Rousseff designated $60 million in aid for the state of Rio de Janeiro and the hardest-hit towns. The minister of national integration, Fernando Bezerra, said half the money would be in state and municipal accounts by Monday — six days after the disaster struck.

Rio state's Civil Defense department said on its website Sunday that 268 people were killed in Teresopolis and 283 in Nova Friburgo, a 45-mile (75-kilometer) drive to the west. Fifty-six died in neighboring Petropolis and 19 in the town of Sumidouro.

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A car, dragged inside a church by a mudslide, is seen in Nova Friburgo, Brazil on Friday, Jan. 21. Brazil will create a nationwide disaster-prevention and early-warning system following recent floods and landslides that killed more than 750 people in mountain towns north of Rio de Janeiro, government officials said Thursday.
(Felipe Dana / AP)
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A dog from K9 de Creixell, a Spanish organization, searches for landslide victims in a damaged home in Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, Thursday, Jan. 20. Deaths from last week's mudslides rose to at least 727 and have left thousands homeless.
(Felipe Dana / AP)
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A girl receives a container of potable water from a soldier in the landslide-affected Alto Floresta neighborhood in Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, on Wednesday, Jan. 19.
(Felipe Dana / AP)
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Red Cross volunteers stack donated clothes at a relief center in Teresopolis, state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Wednesday, Jan 19. Brazilian officials began moving thousands of people out of at-risk areas near Rio in a flooding disaster that has already left at least 727 people dead. Ten teams of civil defense and environment officials were evacuating residents in outlying areas of Nova Friburgo, the hardest-hit town, said their commander, Colonel Roberto Robadey.
(Vanderlei Almeida / AFP - Getty Images)
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Brazilian National Force rescue workers carry the body of a boy on the scene of a recent landslide, where seven people were found buried among debris in the neighbourhood of Jardilandia, in Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil, on Jan. 19.
(Mauricio Lima / AFP - Getty Images)
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Residents of Sumidouro, one of the mudslide-hit towns north of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, unload supplies from a navy helicopter on Tuesday, Jan. 18. Brazil has sent around 700 troops to help areas desperate for aid.
(Felipe Dana / AP)
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A woman cries while holding her newborn baby after being rescued by helicopter from an isolated area near Petropolis on Monday.
(Vanderlei Almeida / AFP - Getty Images)
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A house remains standing on Monday even though the rest of the hillside in a rural area north of Rio de Janeiro collapsed.
(Bruno Domingos / Reuters)
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Paulo Rodrigues da Silva, left, reacts as he embraces a relative he found at a shelter for people displaced by landslides in Nova Friburgo, Brazil, Jan. 16.
(Felipe Dana / AP)
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Rescue workers climb on a helicopter after searching for survivors and victims in an area affected by a landslide near Nova Friburgo, Brazil, Jan. 16.
(Felipe Dana / AP)
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Ludmila Moura, 5, sits on a mattress at a shelter for people displaced by landslides in Nova Friburgo, Brazil, Jan. 16. Ludmila was pulled out of her destroyed house by her father, Marcelo Moura, on the first night of heavy rains last Thursday.
(Felipe Dana / AP)
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A dog, "Leao", sits for a second consecutive day, next to the grave of her owner, Cristina Maria Cesario Santana, who died in the week's catastrophic landslides in Brazil, at the cemetery in Teresopolis, near Rio de Janiero, on Jan. 15.
(Vanderlei Almeida / AFP - Getty Images)
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Local residents look at partially buried vehicles in Nova Friburgo, Brazil, Saturday, Jan. 15, after heavy rains hit Rio de Janeiro for several days. More than 500 people have died due to floods.
(Antonio Lecedra / EPA)
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An aerial view of a neighborhood partially destroyed by a landslide caused by heavy rains in Nova Friburgo, Jan. 13. Rescue workers dug desperately for survivors on Thursday and struggled to reach areas cut off by raging floods and landslides that have killed hundreds of people in one of Brazil's worst natural disasters in decades.
(Shana Reis / Government of Rio via Reuters)
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A nurse receives medical attention after fainting in front of the police station in which several bodies are being counted after the heavy rains in Teresópolis, Jan. 13.
(Antonio Lacerda / EPA)
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